He took a deep interest in Guernsey breeding. But Odell did the talking. That was how Graydon acquired a reputation for an astonishing versatility;--he started the subject and kept it kindled while others did the talking. And in ten minutes he was able to converse upon the theme with a skilful and convincing fluency entirely irresistible. * * * * * After dinner Mazie showed him Fanny’s miniature on ivory. He smilingly sketched for the family a brief history of miniature painting. It happened that he was minutely familiar with all methods and all branches of Art. Indeed, that was how the entire affair started. And Art accounted for the acid stains, also. To Eris, Art included the drama, and all that her ardent mind desired. It took Mr. Graydon about five minutes to discover this. And of course it transpired that he knew everything connected with the drama, spoken and silent. The next evening he came to supper. He talked cattle, ensilage, rotation of crops, sub-soils, inoculation, fertilisers, with Odell until the hypnotised farmer was loth to let him go. He talked to Mazie about household economy, labour-saving devices, sanitary disposal plants, water systems, bleaches--with which he was dreadfully familiar--furniture polish, incubators. With the boys he discussed guns and ammunition, traps and trapping, commercial education, the relation of labour to capital, baseball in the State League, ready-made clothing, the respective merits of pointers, setters, bull terriers and Airedales. Hypnotised yawns protested against the bed hour in the household of Odell. Nobody desired to retire. The spell held like a trap. As for Eris, she decided to stay in the sitting room with Mr. Graydon when the family’s yawns at last started them blinking bedward. Odell, yawning frightfully, got into his night-shirt and then into bed; and lay opening and shutting his eyes like an owl on the pillow while Mazie, for the first time in months, did her hair in curl papers. “A nice, polite, steady young man,” she said, nodding at Odell’s reflection in the looking glass. “My sakes alive, Elmer, what an education he’s got!” “Stew Graydon knows a thing or two, I guess,” yawned Odell. “You gotta be mighty spry to get a holt onto that young fella.” “I’ve a notion they pay him a lot down to the mill,” suggested Mazie. “You can’t expec’ to hire a Noo York man like that fer nothin’,” agreed Odell. “He’s smart, he is. And there’s allus a market fer real smartness. Like as not that young fella will find himself a rich man in ten years. I guesso.” A silence; Mazie busy with her lustrous hair,--the plump, rosy, vigorous incarnation of matronly health. In the mirror she caught Elmer’s sleepy eye and laughed, displaying her white teeth. “You think he kinda favours Eris?” she asked. “Hey?” “I don’t know why else he come to supper.” “He come to supper to talk farmin’ with me,” said Odell gruffly. “Maybe. Only I guess not,” laughed Mazie.